Swiss and Their Neighbours, 1460-1560

Between Accommodation and Aggression
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-872527-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press(UK)

Buch, Englisch, 236 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 523 g

Renewed interest in Swiss history has sought to overcome the old stereotypes of peasant liberty and republican exceptionalism. The heroic age of the Confederation in the fifteenth century is now seen as a turning-point as the Swiss polity achieved a measure of institutional consolidation and stability, and began to mark out clear frontiers. The Swiss and their Neighbours, 1460-1560 questions both assumptions. It argues that the administration of the common lordships by the cantons collectively gave rise to as much discord as co-operation, and remained a pragmatic device not a political principle. It argues that the Swiss War of 1499 was an avoidable catastrophe, from which developed a modus vivendi between the Swiss and the Empire as the Rhine became a buffer-zone, not a boundary. It then investigates the background to Bern's conquest of the Vaud in 1536, under the guise of relieving Geneva from beleaguerment, to suggest that Bern's actions were driven not by predeterminate territorial expansion but by the need to halt French designs upon Geneva and Savoy.

The geopolitical balance of the Confederation was fundamentally altered by Bern's acquisition of the Vaud and adjacent lands. Nevertheless, the political fabric of the Confederation, which had been tested to the brink during the Reformation, proved itself flexible enough to absorb such a major reorientation, not least because what held the Confederation together was not so much institutions as a sense of common identity and mutual obligation forged during the Burgundian Wars of the 1470s.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scott, Tom

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Kommunal-, Regional-, und Landesverwaltung
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- PART I: Accommodation

- 1: Setting the Scene

- 2: The Occupation of the Thurgau

- 3: From War to Peace

- 4: Trouble in the Thurgau

- 5: Konstanz's Dilemma

- 6: The Swiss or Swabian War of 1499

- 7: Raids and Retaliation

- 8: The Peace of Basel and Its Aftermath

- 9: The Hereditary Agreement of 1511

- 10: Calm Amidst the Storm

- 11: A Last Hurrah

- 12: Conclusion: Frontiers Mental and Physical

- PART II: Aggression

- 13: The Romandie: An Open Landscape

- 14: The Romandie: A Commercial Crossroads

- 15: The Burgundian Wars

- 16: A Contested Outcome

- 17: The Troubled Inheritance of Duke Charles II of Savoy

- 18: The Dufour Affair

- 19: All Unquiet on the Western Front

- 20: Savoy Strikes Back

- 21: The Struggle for Geneva

- 22: War or Peace?

- 23: Religion or Politics?

- 24: The Year of the French

- 25: The Vagaries of Conquest

- 26: The Spoils of War

- 27: Faction in Geneva

- 28: The Romandie Reconfigured

- 29: Conclusion: Motives and Outcomes

- Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Before joining the Institute of Reformation Studies in St Andrews in 2004, Tom Scott was based in the School of History at the University of Liverpool. Before that he was a research fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. His main publications include: Regional Identity and Economic Change: The Upper Rhine, 1450-1600 (1997); Town, Country, and Regions in Reformation Germany (2005); The City-State in Europe, 1000-1600 (2012); and The Early Reformation in Germany between Secular Impact and Radical Vision (2013)